2024 Election Discussion General

[Lyubov]

I understand the outrage in here about Trump winning. I agree he is a liar, corrupt, a terrible candidate and not remotely aligned with what’s true. I also do agree the country and key demographics (women needing abortions) will face problems due to his leadership. 

I also would wonder if Harris won, would there still be a similar reaction? Because I believe it would warrant one just as big but for entirely different reasons. Staying in the known and having no bold vision or path is equally as dangerous in entirely different ways. I’m comparing  a make believe scenario with reality so take it with a grain of salt but Dems had four years to guide America away from Trumpsim yet did nothing. The “Trump side is worse so just vote for Harris” argument doesn’t cut it here. It’s a very narrow near sided way of thinking. Republicans have kept their party alive by embracing radical new change, for the worse.

Dems refused to embrace change and look at how they have stagnated. This is actually a lesson in life here. If you do not embrace change and the unknown you will be trampled by those who do even if it’s terrible ideas, so why not embrace the unknown and change if you are so certain your values and politics are the best? 

Edited 2 hours ago by Lyubov

[Spiritual Warfare]

[Jannes]

1 minute ago, Schizophonia said:

The more you harass people, especially young people, with anti-racist, cosmopolitan, socialist and feminist propaganda, the more you deny their energetic wholeness and give pulsional force to the opposite polarity.
This is especially true in a time when people are more isolated and passive than ever because of comfort.
People like Trump because he is an archetype of self-love; he is Bawdy, enterprising, friendly, "patriotic", pro-security, anti-immigration, anti "woke propaganda" etcetc.
We can think it's a depraved persona or whatever, but the fact is that he would not have won if he was not the solution to an energetic equation that is playing out on a large scale.

If the Democrats would water down their wine, people wouldn't have had to vote for such a person.

I agree that it's mostly a deep problem, a deep dissatisfaction in society. I just wanted to say that not being able to fully comprehend his persona might be a partial truth while he was elected as well. 

I would say that especially young males are affected by what you describe. Everybody is a victim except them. That sucks especially because they actually dont have it easy at all. 

[Raze]

A major issue is the possibility democrats beat back any reform and change nothing. They were largely able to keep the same people in charge after the 2016 loss and may do it again. They would rather never win again than reform.

Edited 1 hour ago by Raze

[Basman]

6 hours ago, Alex4 said:

Green stage is the beautiful stage. It’s the stage that reconnects you with nature, your community, and, paradoxically, even with your country. Once you step into green, you begin to see just how full of shit blue and orange are.

I’m considering starting a thread to explain how to embrace the green stage. Many of you fall into the trap of thinking you can somehow reach yellow by skipping green.

All of tier 1 are just different degrees of cringe.

[Consept]

11 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

Hes not even allowed out of his house 

[What Am I]

Something I've seen discussed is the fervor Democrats had for expanding the supreme court and killing the filibuster. It's thought that they planned to perform those actions, assuming they ended up in the position the Republicans currently hold. The question now is whether the Republicans should use those exact tactics.

[Raze]

5 minutes ago, What Am I said:

Something I've seen discussed is the fervor Democrats had for expanding the supreme court and killing the filibuster. It's thought that they planned to perform those actions, assuming they ended up in the position the Republicans currently hold. The question now is whether the Republicans should use those exact tactics.

If they did the next time democrats were in power they could do the same 

[What Am I]

Just now, Raze said:

If they did the next time democrats were in power they could do the same 

Right, I'm of the opinion that they should attempt to pull back and prevent the cycle. But it may be good to try to demonstrate that they could do it if they wanted, to help ensure the consequences of those actions are understood in the reverse. Though that may be a step too far, and it'll only add to the resentment.

[Spiritual Warfare]

14 minutes ago, Consept said:

Hes not even allowed out of his house 

😅 

[Leo Gura]

48 minutes ago, Spiritual Warfare said:

Rapists of a feather flock together.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

Gavin Newsom is absolutely despised in the entire country. It isn’t just progressives. 

What will it take for you to stop blaming progressives for everything?

Hillary, Biden, and Kamala were not progressive and cared little about what progressives thought, how on earth is their failures the fault of progressives? 

Because progressives want impossible things and in the meantime they shit on liberals, thus empowering fascists.

Progressives are useful idiots for fascists.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Spiritual Warfare]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Rapists of a feather flock together.

That’s the last thing America needs right now 😂

[hundreth]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because progressives want impossible things and in the meantime they shit on liberals, thus empowering fascists.

Progressives are useful idiots for fascists.

This is true, but it goes even further than that. 

They shit on everyone who has some divergence of thought instead of integrating. Someone like Sam Harris, who is a staunch opponent of Trump and makes rational arguments from a centrist position is completely alienated because in his decades long career he said a few things they don't like.

Someone like that could be an extremely useful ally when combating Trumpism because he isn't an unreasonable progressive. In fact, this is why he in particular drives MAGA world crazy. They spend the most time contending with someone like that, because they can't simply paint him with broad strokes.

[Spiritual Warfare]

@Leo Gura A bird whispered in my ear that Tate is moving to Las Vegas. Sounds like a perfect opportunity for you two to grab a coffee and start your friendship, maybe even hit the jackpot together.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because progressives want impossible things and in the meantime they shit on liberals, thus empowering fascists.

Progressives are useful idiots for fascists.

Are we as progressives just supposed to keep bending the knee to centrist liberals and Democrats each and every election cycle, for the rest of our lives, until... what? Until the mainstream public wises up and becomes Progressives?

And maybe eek out a primary victory or victories in the legislature here and there?

Edit: I just remembered, there was a country which actually tried to elect a Bernie Sanders style candidate, the UK, and the results were really bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

It was only when the centrist, Keir Starmer, was nominated that Labour won a blowout victory. Even then, it was only after the public was fed up with 14 years of Conservative leadership.

Edited 45 minutes ago by Husseinisdoingfine

[Raze]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because progressives want impossible things and in the meantime they shit on liberals, thus empowering fascists.

Progressives are useful idiots for fascists.

What impossible thing did progressives pressure democrats into trying that hurt them? Progressives have gotten nothing.

So no one should criticize democrats because it can help republicans? There is zero evidence for this narrative that progressive criticism is why democrats lost in general elections. They tried blaming Bernie for Hillary’s loss, but more Bernie primary voters voted for Hillary then Hillary primary voters voted for Obama. They tried blaming Jill Stein for taking votes, but even if Kamala got every third party vote in swing states this time she’d still lose. 

The main progressive criticisms of democrats were completely correct and would have helped democrats. Biggest recent example is that there should have been a primary. 

Everyone was saying progressives were hurting dems by demanding this, and dems ignored them until they were forced to pull Biden late in the game. And this is progressives fault? For being right?

Many of the progressive ballot measures passed in states that went for Trump like in Missouri. Voters like the progressive proposal, but didn’t like Kamala.

It is absolutely insane to blame progressives for democratic losses, if democrats put forward a progressive candidate and they lose badly, you’d be right. But the opposite happened, they put a neo liberal forward and they lost badly, again. 
 

Blaming progressives is the tactic used by the establishment dems to avoid changing anything they are doing no matter how much they lose. It is so obvious.

Edited 41 minutes ago by Raze

[Jodistrict]

The word progressive is being used as a general term but exactly what is progressive?   Is allowing men in women’s sports progressive?  Who said so?  Who is it that declares this to be progressive?   This isn’t a trivial issue because this indulgent excess was part of what turned the majority of Americans against the democratic party.  And no these Amercans are not dumb low information voters.  In many ways they are more intelligent than the establishment “experts” who were predicting Kamala Harris would win.

Recall that in 2016 Bernie Sanders was gaining traction on what I would argue are real issues such as economic justice, healthcare, and an affordable education system for all.   But Bernie was sabotaged by the party bosses and big donors selecting Hillary Clinton rather than having an open and fair primary.  These are the same people who drove Robert Kennedy out of the democratic party.   They then appointed Kamala Harris.  They could have run a fair primary system where the voters would have selected a candidate that resonates with the public.  They could have won.

[What Am I]

7 minutes ago, Jodistrict said:

The word progressive is being used as a general term but exactly what is progressive?

Very interesting question which I never really considered for whatever reason. What specifically is meant by the "progress" portion of progressive, and how is its advancement determined/measured? I wonder, is it even possible for such a thing to be objective? Anybody who's of that inclination have a good answer?

Edited 17 minutes ago by What Am I

[aurum]

5 hours ago, DocWatts said:

I might post occasionally on the other sections of the Forum (in Intellectual Stuff), but I'll be stepping away from the Politics & Society section. It's been sad to see broader problems within our society impact this Forum in a negative way. Best of luck to you, the other mods, and folks I've interacted with here over the years. These discussions continue to be important, but I'm not finding what I need here any more.

Thanks for bringing the sanity around here. Your posts were greatly clarifying.